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Posted
5:20 AM
by The Consultant
Enthusiasm
This was his first job. Today was his first day. He wanted to make his presence felt. He wanted to shift paradigms. He wanted to shatter old mindsets and usher in a new era of competitive collaboration. He wanted to align individual objectives with functional objectives, functional objectives with company vision to such an extent that if plotted on a 3-dimensional chart, all three would appear to be the same line heading in the same direction with the same force. And this was just his first planned initiative. His second planned initiative was to align the company objectives with supplier objective, with retailer’/distributors’ objective and all these objectives with the ultimate objective i.e. the Consumers’ objective. Yes, You guessed it! He was a management trainee in Human Resource Department. He had planned many more initiatives. But I will spare you the details.
He showed up at the factory gate with enthusiasm bubbling in his blood. If any GP had bothered to measure his blood pressure and other parameters at that time, he would have been left scratching his head, such was the total transformation of our hero’s blood supply chain. But I am digressing from the narrative. Our hero, with typical drive supposedly attributable to the Young MBAs, had shown up 30 minutes before the scheduled time. He felt that this was the time to interact with the workers, understand their aspirations, their motives, their hopes, their pain, and their sufferings… so as to facilitate the process of assimilating the individual objectives… the first step in his first planned initiative.
He flashed his credentials at the security guard. The guard took one look at the card and shrank back as one who has just seen a ghost. He pointed a shaking finger in the general direction of the factory and sank to his feet.
Hero entered the hot and humid factory and took a look at all the grime, dirt and fumes. Huge machines of different sizes were making noises appropriate to their level of size and complexity. A few steam pipes were letting off their steam so as to be a part of the team. In the midst of all this commotion, workers were scurrying around. Despite all the noise, the entire disturbance, one motivated worker noticed the subtle change in the environment. He sensed the presence of something that was imperceptible, unreachable and yet omnipresent. He immediately knew that this had to be HR. His eyes scanned the surroundings and settled on the unfamiliar sight of our hero. Suddenly his mouth went dry, his strong and able body lost all its vitality. He stood paralyzed on the spot and stared at our hero with the look of one who has lost all hope in the world. The same reaction spread through the entire factory at the speed of light. All around the place, the work came to a halt, the hands stopped moving, and the machines ceased their noise. Everything came to a standstill. Such was the silence reigning in the factory; that a passerby would have mistaken the factory for a government warehouse
Pleased with his first impression, our hero jumped at the nearest worker with the speed that would have put a cheetah (the kind that chases prey and eats it in Serengeti, not the kind that poses for photographs in zoos.) to shame. He whipped out a thick wad of paper from his folder and shook it in front of the worker’s face.
"I have a small questionnaire here that I want you to fill up."
The worker stared at our hero. It took about 10 seconds for the true meaning of the request to sink in. As soon as he realized what was expected of him, he couldn’t take it anymore. He screamed with all the power in his lungs. With tears streaming down his dirty, sweaty face, he looked around and rammed his head into the nearest piece of machine. As he fell to the ground, our hero smiled with unconcealed satisfaction and pleasure, took out his Reynolds with unnecessary flourish and slowly wrote on top of the questionnaire,
Posted
7:22 AM
by The Consultant
Bad Luck
"Excuse me, but you just dropped your wallet!"
He whirled around and nearly snatched the wallet from my hands. Then he realised how rude it would have appeared to me.
"Thank you, Thanks a lot!!! I should have been a bit more careful."
I smiled, shook his hand and we went our separate ways.
After about two months, I was travelling in a local train. It was not that crowded. I noticed a familiar face and tried to jog my memory. He came forward.
"Hi, I am Raj. We met some time back when you restored my wallet to me."
I recognised him. He introduced the guy with him who was watching this entire episode with bulging eyes and an open mouth.
"This is my partner Ramesh. We are in the computer maintenance business. That day you really saved my ass. I was on my way to place a tender for maintenance services of a big client. I could pay the tender deposit because of you."
"Oh, so did you get the contract?"
"No, we did not. But we will get the next one soon. Oh, this is our stop. "
"Ok, see you around."
I was really puzzled by the expression on Ramesh's face. Why was he so surprised by that entire thing?? I could not figure that out.
After about six months, I was on my way to Bandra in a fast local. I got down at Bandra. As I made my way through the crowd, I saw a lot of commotion at the end of the platform. I had to fulfill my duties as a dedicated onlooker and immediately made my way to the small crowd. A couple of policemen were restraining the mob from beating up someone.
"Saala Pakitmaar!" My neighbour observed. "These scumbags should be hanged."
The police finally managed to extricate the culprit from the mob and I stared at the bloody face of Raj.
"He is not a pickpocket. He is a software professional. I know him."
Havaldar looked at me.
"You know this guy? "
"Yeah, I have met him a few times in the train. He is not a paakitmaar"
"Bhaisaab, you obviously don't know him. This is not the first time we are catching this guy. Please let us do our work. "
Raj stared at the ground. I moved out of their way and the police took him away.
I thought that it was probably the last time I would see Raj. But I was mistaken. I met him again at Bandra Station after about one year.
"Saab, can we talk for a couple of minutes? I know a good teashop here."
I looked at him for a couple of minutes.
"Ok, lets go."
I accompanied him to the teashop. He waited till we had finished our tea. Then he paid the shopkeeper.
"So, how is your business?"
"Saab, I have stopped that business for good now. I have led an honest life since I got out of jail."
"Really?"
"Saab, I am here to thank you. You have saved my life. The wallet that you returned to me the first time we met was not mine. That night I thought a lot about the life I had ben leading; but decided to carry on. The day I met you in the railway, Ramesh was about to target you. I really felt ashamed that day. I gave up this line of business and tried something honest for a while. I worked as a waiter for some time, but the money was never enough and temptation was always there."
"So you succumbed to it?"
"Haan saab. But when I stole that wallet and looked at the money inside, I suddenly felt a new resolve. I decided that I would rather starve."
"I don't understand. Weren't you caught redhanded?"
"Haan saab. I was caught when I was trying to put it back in!"
I gaped at him.
He laughed.
"Haan saab. Now I really laugh at it. Saala, my luck is really bad. I was caught redhanded only twice in 5 years, and the first time that I was doing something good for a change, this thing happened. "
Posted
11:05 PM
by The Consultant
Free Education!!!???
On 17th of June, 2002, I came to IIM Lucknow. Yesterday, I attended my last lecture at IIM Lucknow. As I left the class, I felt really sad. My days at IIM Lucknow were the best days of my life so far. I had the privilege of associating with some of the most intelligent people of my generation. It was a really wonderful experience. I learnt a lot of things from a lot of people.
I am not sad because I am leaving this place. I am sad because this is perhaps the last batch that will go out of IIM Lucknow , the real IIM Lucknow as we know it. From the next year, it will be the IIM Lucknow as Mr. Murli Manohar Joshi wants it to be. The fee reduction is not the real headache. The real problem is that this maniac has an insane desire to control a wonderful institution when even an idiot could see that he doesn’t have the brains to do it.
In 1991, we started an initiative called liberalization. After 2004, Mr. Joshi wants to take us back to 1991 and maybe 1901 if possible. The recent education bill that he has come up with will sound the death knell of quality education in India. For last 57 years, we have observed one trend. The moment the government enters any sector; it kills any initiatives towards quality and competition in that sector. And the moment the Government stops interfering, it starts booming. We can thank our lucky stars that the Government didn’t try its hand at the software sector.
But it is not as if all the policy initiatives that this Government has taken are bad. The recent liberalization of insurance sector, the coming liberalization of the banking sector is good news for India. Slowly but surely we were moving towards capitalism. But we cannot hope to compete against the coming hordes of MNCs, if we do not have the right resources. That is where these initiatives of Mr. MMJ hit us hard. In the absence of a competitive education sector, we won’t have the right people to compete. I am afraid that learning astrology doesn’t exactly equip you to handle the competition.
You guys might be feeling that I am being too panicky. But don’t think that these plans of Mr MMJ wont succeed. They will succeed unless and until we all oppose them and make ourselves heard. You cannot expect the masses in villages to understand the implications of these measures. They are ignorant and may be easily hoodwinked by Mr. Joshi. The idea of controlling private schools is too good for any politician to oppose publicly. It has that ancient “beat the greedy rich pigs and help the poor” ring to it. Anyone who shows the guts to oppose that will be putting an end to his/her political career. And I do not believe that the politicians should sacrifice their careers for our sake. If we want nice things to happen to us, I guess we have to do something for it.
http://presidentofindia.nic.in/scripts/writetopresident.jsp
http://pmindia.nic.in/guestbook..htm
Try these two links.
And let’s hope that someone stops this maniac before he destroys the real competitive advantage of India i.e. Our intelligence.
